1. The highway should be as direct as possible between the cities or towns to be linked, thereby, satisfying the major desired links. A direct highway link results in economy in construction, maintenance and operation.
2. The location should result in minimum interference to agriculture and industry.
3.The location should, as far as possible, facilitate easy grades and curvature.
4. The location should steer clear of obstruction, such as, cemetries, burning ghats, places of worship, archaeological and historical monuments, and as far as possible, from public facilities, like, hospitals, schools, play grounds, etc.
5. Where the proposed location interferes with utility, services, like, overhead transmission lines. Water supply links, etc., decision between changing the highway alignment or shifting the utility services should be based on study of the relative economics and feasibility.
6. As far as possible, frequent crossing and re-crossing of a railway line should be avoided. For design requirements in such cases, reference may be made to IRC:39 "Standards for Road-Rail Level Crossings".
7. An important obligatory point in the selection of the route is the location of river crossings. While crossings of major rivers (waterway exceeding 200 m.) may have to be as normal to the river flow if possible, with highway alignment sub-ordinated to considerations of the bridge siting. Crossings of medium/minor streams should be generally governed by the requirements of the highway proper. If necessary, such structures could be made skew/ located on curves.
8. The location should be such that the highway is fully integrated with the surrounding landscape of the area. In this connection, it would be necessary to
9. to cause least interference to cultivation and other activities and to avoid the need for frequent crossing of the highway by the local people.
10. The location should be, such as, to avoid unnecessary and expensive destruction of wooded areas. Where intrusion into such areas is unavoidable the highway should be aligned on a curve if possible so as to preserve an unbroken background.
11. The location should, as far as possible, be close to sources of embankment axid pavement materials so that haulage of these over long distances is avoided and the cost minimised.
12. A preferred location is one which passes through areas having better type of soil and permits a balancing of the cost of cut and fill for the formation.
13. Marshy and low-lying land, and areas having poor drainage and very poor embankment material should be avoided, as far as possible. Also, areas susceptible to subsidence due to mining operations should be by-passed.
14. Areas liable to flooding should be avoided, as far as possible.
15. Highways through villages and towns increase traffic hazards and cause delay and congestion. Wherever a serious problem of this nature is encountered it may be advisable to by-pass the built-up area playing well clear of the limits upto which the town or village is anticipated to grow in the future.
16. As far as possible, areas likely to be unstable due to toe-erosion by rivers, shall be avoided.
17. During fixing of alignment by the side of a river, the direction of flow of the river and HFL records for past 50 years shall be kept in view.
18. In spite of all conscious effort to avoid running through forest areas many times roads are required to be aligned passing through the forest land. With increase in traffic roads require to be widened often leading to cutting of ties on one or both sides of the road. All these unavoidable feeling need to be made good by provision of compensatory afforestation in equal or additional areas at suitable locations. Project preparation needs to keep this aspect in view and make necessary provisions for compensatory afforestation where the same is warranted.
19. If prior to project preparation it is known that a facility under construction is to be widened to additional lanes, the project should be prepared by locating the first embankment and pavement in an eccentric position with respect to the total land available and also freeze the total land required for the entire envisaged facility right in the beginning. The subsequent construction may then be undertaken symmetrically with respect to the center line of the land.
© 2019 Narendra Geotechnical. All rights reserved
Our services are extremely applauded in the market due to timely completion and consistency. These services are rendered employing the advanced techniques. Owing to high demand, we render our services at nominal costs.